Lisle Board Readies Questions For Firm On Solvent Cleanup

Public To Hear Lockformer Replies

July 07, 2000|By Barbara Sherlock, Tribune Staff Writer.

After hearing officials from Lockformer Co. fill them in on the progress of cleaning up a decades-long chemical spill, Lisle trustees have decided to come up with a list of questions for the company to answer at an Aug. 28 public hearing.

The metal forming and fabricating company is asking trustees to create a special ordinance prohibiting anyone from drilling drinking wells within an area around the spill site near the company's Ogden Avenue property.

"It is fair to say that we've been very busy in the past year," Lockformer's attorney, Dan Biederman, said during Wednesday night's Village Board meeting. "We've done a lot of additional site work to investigate this ordinance, particularly defining its geographical scope and that it will not negatively affect any residents."

From about 1968, when the company built a plant on the former farmland, until the mid-1990s, Lockformer used the solvent trichloroethene, or TCE, as a degreaser. The company said it was unaware that some of the chemical was landing in the ground while suppliers filled tanks.

The nonflammable liquid sank about 35 to 50 feet, stopping at the hard surface of dry clay, according to information supplied by Lockformer's consultant, Carlson Environmental. The liquid is moving away from the original spill site and has traveled horizontally about 386 feet, propelled by the groundwater moving through the sandy silt layer above the clay toward nearby St. Joseph's Creek.

The company's proposed ordinance would prohibit drilling between the creek and Ogden Avenue to the north and from Auvergne Avenue westward to the edge of an adjacent 12-acre Lockformer parcel.

The Illinois Environmental Protection Agency, which is monitoring the situation, has approved the proposed boundaries.

Lisle's municipal water system travels through the site and there are five private wells pumping at depths well below the groundwater level.

Testing on three of the five affected wells was negative, and officials believe the degrading solvent will not seep to any of the wells for decades. Still, company officials hope to eliminate any concern.

"We understand how disconcerting and confusing this information can be, and we've reached out to our neighbors because working with them is very important to us," said Biederman.

The company said it has offered to connect the affected residents to the municipal water system to remove any potential danger to their water supply.

"Our objective is to fully comply with all laws and regulations and to eliminate any environmental risk," Biederman added.

Mayor Ronald Ghilardi and several trustees said they found the ordinance request redundant because a village ordinance would not allow the drilling of new wells.

But Biederman said the IEPA is concerned that the wording of a DuPage County ordinance that also prohibits such drilling, could have loopholes that a new village ordinance would close.

But residents south of the site are not completely at ease with the company's plans.

"We are still concerned our wells could be contaminated," said resident Andy Wroble. "People are still leery, We'd like to have them tested again by an independent outfit--and our yards, because that's where our kids play."

Wroble said residents are concerned that the TCE could percolate to the surface and that they could be inhaling it or it could end up in their basements when there are storm-water backups.